Another Lesson in How to Speak "Big Dog"

The engineering building for my university is currently under construction, so all of the faculty are temporarily housed in cubicles in the basement of the 9-story women's dorm. It's not as bad as it sounds, except that one can hear everyone else's conversations.

There's an old cartoon. It has a big bulldog named Spike walking down the street. Another little dog hops around Spike saying, "What are we going to do today Spike, huh? Are we going to get us a cat today? Huh? Huh?" Spike doesn't say much.

Big dogs like Spike remind me of what I admire in so many of my academic heroes. They don't say much, but they have a presence in the room, and what little they do say is definitely heard.

From my cubicle this week, I overheard a big dog and a little dog chatting about an experiment. The little dog was racing,

"We could do this, then that, then that, which does this..."
And the big dog said, "woah... ... ... let's get some scratch paper."

Lesson: Big dogs still say, "I don't know."

Welcome to Portland, Part II

Yesterday was awful. Up at 7 am to take the strangely energetic fourteen year-old dog for her morning walk. On the way back, twenty feet from our front door, she was attacked by a stray. I screamed. I kicked. She fought. Until the stray's owner, a homeless man, tore them apart.

It was at the vet that I finally started sobbing. Just after I had explained to the secretary that I had just moved to the city. "Welcome to Portland," she said with the perfect mix of empathy and sincerity.

Now the dog is stitched up, stapled up, shaved and drugged. But she's a fighter. Even last night, only hours after surgery, she insisted we walk all the way to the park to do business.

Welcome to Portland, Part I

It took a while to get settled. Four days of driving across country. Fighting the stack of boxes in the new apartment. Watching the dog go from exhausted and despondent to strangely energetic for a fourteen year-old. Or is it thirteen? Only two boxes left to unpack now, and I have settled into my new office at my new campus.

Hello everyone, I am Dr. T., and I am back in Portland.